The Belgian authorities were the first to impose an obligation on operators that today is being applied in many countries and that is found in prevailing international recommendations. This obligation calls for a periodical safety review (or ten-year review). This requirement, included in the authorization decrees for power stations, specifies that after the unit's industrial commissioning, the operator and the approved body must conduct, every ten years, a comparison between the state of the power station and the applicable rules on the one hand, and, on the other, the most advanced regulations, standards and practices applied outside Belgium. These periodical safety reviews are an opportunity for ongoing improvements in the facilities and for significantly enhancing the level of safety. The renovation of systems relating to control and command, instrumentation, safety and fire protection are just a few examples of such improvements.
